Heads on shrimp

[lesged]

Most people in the USA never see the heads of shrimp on their bodies in restaurant or when sold in supermarkets or even fish market. But that's not true in certain southern states in the USA. Here in St. Augustine it is popular and we buy them that way. For Claudia the heads of fresh  shrimp are a delicacy and I give her all of mine. I took pics of them before and after cookng them for our lunch.








K10d

[jamesmck]

Les - Yum!  Many good Chinese restaurants (usually those frequented by Chinese) serve delicious salt and pepper heads-on shrimp like those seen here: http://www.theravenouscouple.com/2009/09/tom-rang-muoi-salt-and-pepper-shrimp.html, or with a very light batter.  I, too, am fond of the heads, and usually eat most of the shell except the tip of the tail.  Your pictures made me hungry.

James

[LarryD]

My daughter is the manager of a sea food dept. at a Major national store. They are special order but she is taking an order everyday and at times an order is not picked up so I then get them at a reduced price...

[martolod]

them's nice looking prawns :cool:

[Graham Serretta]

We also call them "prawns" and they are just about a staple in RSA, because they are a main export from Mocambique, which is just "up the road."  Traditionally quick fried in in a skillet and served on rice and doused with Piri-piri oil (made to a recipe as nowhere else in the world) many restaurants serve "all you can eat" for very little money.  The prawns breed in the silt at the bottom of the estuary of the Limpopo river at Maputo and are harvested in vast quantities.  Many thousands of people depend on the prawn industry for a livelyhood.

When the Cubans took over Mocambique in the late '70s, ostensibly to "assist" the FRELIMO government conquer Angola and all of southern Africa, they dredged the estuary so that large Russian ships could use Maputo (then Lorenco Marques) harbour, destroying the prawn beds in the process.  This caused mass starvation and mass migration away from Maputo.  It took many, many years for the prawn beds to recover, and only in the mid 1990s did we begin to see prawns back on local menus.

They are our favourite celebration food.  Here in the UK they are not that easily obtained, but occasionally we see a box or two of frozen "L.M." (for "Lourenco Marques) prawns in the supermarket, which we seize with relish!

[br1078lum]

I used to frequent (well, as often as I was in town) a cajun chain resturant in Indianapolis, and they served their shrimp and crawdads with the heads on.  But now I'm alergic to shellfish.  Crap.

PF

[LarryD]

LOL Craw daddies are called Freshwater prawns around here in the up scale places.

[lesged]

Thanks James, Larry, Kalle, Graham and Phil for your reaction to and comments about heads on shrimp, aka prawns.

What we normally buy is a pound  (0.454 kilograms) of heads on shrimp. What you see in both plates is my 1/2 lb portion, before I removed the cooked heads and placed them in Claudia's plate. I peel the shells from the bodies and either squeeze a little  fresh lime juice opn them or, dip them into a DIY hot red sauce. Vegetables are not served with the shrimps/prawns, nor are they considered a starter. It is the main dish for a light evening meal. We do the same with platter of raw oyster or pasta dishes, each as a full meal plus a beverage.

Graham,

Thank you for the back story about prawns in RSA. When did you move to England? Sound like it was in the 1990s.

[Graham Serretta]

1997

[radiophoto]

I don't like dem schkrimps' eyeballs starin' at me, so I usually buys 'em wifout dey heads.  They are beautiful here in Corpus Christi, the shrimp, and the major retail store has its own shrimping fleet, so we can usually get fresh catch.  The BP oil spill didn't affect us here last year, so there was no interruption in seafood availability.

[martolod]

one of the best ways i know of cooking Prawns/Shrimps/Langustine is this method, works best over a gas flame, but can be done on a hob:

Fill a wok half  to 2/3 with very coarse rock salt. heat on high. the salt will absorb the heat and store it, and that is the whole point .get as much heat into  the salt as possible. then toss in an amount of raw whole, unshelled Prawns appropriate to the size Wok( don't over fill). cover the prawns with salt and quickly toss about. the prawns will cook very quickly, and the shell will crisp up. take out, serve with lemon juice,lime juice,dipping sauce what ever. and the whole prawn can be eaten. it's almost like a Prawn cracker with meat in it.

[Graham Serretta]

Darn, now I'm hungry!

[Lili]

mmmmmmmmmmmm Shrimp

[lesged]

Below is today's platter of heads on shrimp. They were the the freshest, tastiest and firmest shrimp we ate in the month we've been in St. Augustine.

It's an optical illusion that the platter seems round. It's not, it's oval. Check it out! height vs width.




K10D

[radiophoto]

This is a much bigger platter of shkrimps than the one what started this whole discussion.